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BOOK the improvement of that country. In our North I. American colonies the plantations have con. ftantly followed either the fea-coaft or the banks of the navigable rivers, and have fcarce any where extended themselves to any confiderable diftance from both.

The nations that, according to the beft authenticated history, appear to have been firft civilized, were thofe that dwelt round the coaft of the Mediterranean fea. That fea, by far the greatest inlet that is known in the world, having no tides, nor confequently any waves except fuch as are caufed by the wind only, was, by the fmoothness of its furface, as well as by the multitude of its islands, and the proximity of its neighbouring fhores, extremely favourable to the infant navigation of the world; when, from their ignorance of the compass, men were afraid to quit the view of the coaft, and from the imperfection of the art of fhip-building, to abandon themselves to the boisterous waves of the ocean. To pafs beyond the pillars of Hercules, that is, to fail out of the Streights of Gibraltar, was, in the antient world, long confidered as a moft wonderful and dangerous exploit of navigation. It was late before even the Phenicians and Carthaginians, the most skilful navigators and fhipbuilders of those old times, attempted it, and they were for a long time the only nations that did attempt it.

Of all the countries on the coaft of the Mediterranean fea, Egypt feems to have been the first in which either agriculture or manufactures were cultivated

III.

cultivated and improved to any confiderable CHA P. degree. Upper Egypt extends itself nowhere above a few miles from the Nile, and in Lower Egypt that great river breaks itself into many different canals, which, with the affiftance of a little art, feem to have afforded a communication by water-carriage, not only between all the great towns, but between all the confiderable villages, and even to many farm-houses in the country; nearly in the fame manner as the Rhine and the Maefe do in Holland at prefent. The extent and eafinefs of this inland navigation was probably one of the principal caufes of the early improvement of Egypt.

The improvements in agriculture and manufactures feem likewife to have been of very great antiquity in the provinces of Bengal in the Eaft Indies, and in fome of the eastern provinces of China; though the great extent of this antiquity is not authenticated by any hiftories of whofe authority we, in this part of the world, are well affured. In Bengal the Ganges and feveral other great rivers form a great number of navigable canals in the fame manner as the Nile does in Egypt. In the Eaftern provinces of China too, feveral great rivers form, by their different branches, a multitude of canals, and by communicating with one another afford an inland navigation much more extensive than that either of the Nile or the Ganges, or perhaps than both of them put together. It is remarkable that neither the antient Egyptians, nor the Indians, nor the Chinefe, encouraged foreign commerce, but

feem

BOOK feem all to have derived their great opulence I. from this inland navigation.

All the inland parts of Africa, and all that part of Afia which lies any confiderable. way north of the Euxine and Cafpian feas, the antient Scythia, the modern Tartary and Siberia, feem in all ages of the world to have been in the fame barbarous and uncivilized ftate in which we find them at prefent. The fea of Tartary is the frozen ocean which admits of no navigation, and though fome of the greatest rivers in the world run through that country, they are at too great a diftance from one another to carry commerce and communication through the greater part of it. There are in Africa none of thofe great inlets, fuch as the Baltic and Adriatic feas in Europe, the Mediterranean and Euxine feas in both Europe and Afia, and the gulphs of Arabia, Perfia, India, Bengal, and Siam, in Afia, to carry maritime commerce into the interior parts of that great continent: and the great rivers of Africa are at too great a distance from one another to give occafion to any confiderable inland navi gation. The commerce befides which any nation can carry on by means of a river which does not break itself into any great number of branches or canals, and which runs into another territory before it reaches the fea, can never be very confiderable; because it is always in the power of the nations who poffefs that other territory to obftruct the communication between the upper country and the fea. The navigation of the Danube is of very little ufe to the different ftates

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ftates of Bavaria, Austria and Hungary, in com- CHA P. parison of what it would be if any of them poffeffed the whole of its courfe till it falls into the Black Sea.

WE

CHAP. IV.

Of the Origin and Ufe of Money.

IV.

HEN the divifion of labour has been once C H A P. thoroughly established, it is but a very fmall part of a man's wants which the produce of his own labour can fupply. He fupplies the far greater part of them by, exchanging that furplus part of the produce of his own labour, which is over and above his own confumption, for fuch parts of the produce of other men's labour as he has occafion for. Every man thus lives by exchanging, or becomes in fome meafure a merchant, and the fociety itself grows to be what is properly a commercial fociety.

But when the divifion of labour firft began to take place, this power of exchanging must frequently have been very much clogged and embarraffed in its operations. One man, we shali fuppofe, has more of a certain commodity than he himself has occafion for, while another has lefs. The former confequently would be glad to difpofe of, and the latter to purchase, a part of this fuperfluity. But if this latter fhould chance to have nothing that the former ftands in need of, no exchange can be made between them.

VOL. II.

The

I.

BOOK The butcher has more meat in his shop than he himself can confume, and the brewer and the baker would each of them be willing to purchase a part of it. But they have nothing to offer in exchange, except the different productions of their respective trades, and the butcher is already provided with all the bread and beer which he has immediate occafion for. No exchange can, in this cafe, be made between them. He cannot be their merchant, nor they his customers; and they are all of them thus mutually lefs ferviceable to one another. In order to avoid the inconveniency of fuch fituations, every prudent man in every period of society, after the first establishment of the divifion of labour, must naturally have endeavoured to manage his affairs in fuch a manner, as to have at all times by him, befides the peculiar produce of his own industry, a certain quantity of fome one commodity or other, fuch as he imagined few people would be likely to refuse in exchange for the produce of their industry.

Many different commodities, it is probable, were fucceffively both thought of and employed for this purpose. In the rude ages of fociety, cattle are faid to have been the common inftrument of commerce; and, though they must have been a most inconvenient one, yet in old times we find things were frequently valued according to the number of cattle which had been given in exchange for them. The armour of Diomede, fays Homer, coft only nine oxen; but that of Glaucus coft an hundred oxen. Salt is faid to

be

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